Friday, July 31, 2015

Graphic novels continue to work their way
onto my radar for quality literature. Here are two new ones that I loved.

A Sam and Friends Mystery: Book
Two: Lake Monster Mix-Up by Mary Labatt and Jo Rioux

Persnickety, pesky pup Sam is always
looking for mysteries to solve. Human friend Jennie can talk with Sam, and together they make a good team. On a trip to a lake house
with Jennie’s friend Beth, Sam discovers a hidden opening in a bedroom wall.
With Jennie and Beth’s help, they discover a secret compartment and a journal
from long ago. Following the guidance listed in the journal, Beth, Sam, and
Jennie enjoy a splendid and exciting vacation, solving mysteries that include
lake monsters and buried treasure!Accessible, engaging, and fun to read, I really enjoyed Lake Monster
Mix-Up.

Set in Newfoundland in 1928, Grace gathers
news through houndish techniques that some people disdain. However her practice
leads her to learn tons more about this new female who wants to fly across the
Atlantic Ocean. Through her investigating, Grace learns the trials of trying to
fly planes as a female, some of the mathematics involved with flying, and the
excitement of women trying to accomplish things that had never been
accomplished before. This novel offers sweet history about Amelia Earhart and the late '20's while
also weaving a story I had never heard about some of the competition between
women so eager to break through the limits placed on them by society in the
U.S. An enthralling read, I whizzed through this text and wanted to go fly.

Friday, July 24, 2015

Winnie the Pooh fan? Looking to expand your child’s knowledge of the divine Winnie and the animals of Pooh Corner? Or secretly hoping to expand your own? Get this great book in your hands and learn away. Accessible, engaging, and fascinating, Walker helps us trace an amazing story. She wisely includes photographs inside of both covers, extending the story all the more for readers like me. Honestly I cannot imagine someone having a bear as a close companion, but I also cannot imagine a better way to live through being in the armed forces during World War 1.

And it's all about Winnie the Pooh. What is not to like? Great read aloud, or read silently if you are like me and an adult who turns into a curious child in the living of wise texts.

Friday, July 17, 2015

I will never forget Tevin’s story. After
reading Jacqueline Woodson’s amazing (and somewhat autobiographical) book Visiting
Day to my class, a kindergartner asked who is it harder for: the child
leaving or the parent who cannot leave the prison. Silence filled our room as
we pondered this heartbreaking and difficult question. Then Tevin spoke. He
said, “For the father. I would know. I leave my dad every time I see him in
prison.”

I sat blinking back tears. Tevin rarely spoke
in our classroom. He told us this truth in June—I had no idea his father was in
prison.As is always true, I had so much
to learn.

I still have so much to learn. It is from
deeply authentic and transparent stories like Woodson’s and now Baskin’s that
help others like me make sense of a world I know nothing about (prison) and the
feelings, trials, and choices that children of men and women that live in
prison. Ruby on the Outside is that kind of book. This is a novel about
a young teen who lives with her aunt in a new-to-her town. Ruby makes friends
with another girl who moves in, but she very works hard to keep all of her
experiences and stories about her incarcerated mother completely hidden from Margalit,
her new friend.

True to form, successful young adult writers
must capture the reader immediately. Here are the first two paragraphs of the
book:

“It’s all
she’s known her whole life, Matoo explains to her friends on the phone when she
thinks I can’t hear her. “Ruby doesn’t remember anything different, so for her
it’s normal,” she says about me.

But Matoo is
wrong...”

Baskin, page 1

Baskin, author of Anything But Typical
among other titles, absolutely captured me in this text. I didn’t want it to
end. I can imagine me as a child loving this book. Yep, it’s a keeper for me!!

Friday, July 10, 2015

I should have known from the start that the author of Wild Life would take making a fort to new heights. And boy, did she!! I loved the second half of this book. I mean I loved the first too, and all of the information in the first half is critical for the second, but the second half of the book held my attention so rapt that I couldn't put it down. I am not sure which one I liked more, Wild Life or Fort.

DeFelice starts her story with two teenage boys in their last couple of weeks in summer together. Augie and Wyatt are steadfast friends, and they have the distinct pleasure of sharing the same experiences of being bullied by a couple of school thunks. Since they only have 2 weeks left of summer, they decide to speedily build a fort out in the woods. Early on the the bullies find the fort and verbally tease Augie and Wyatt and in time, the boys decide to figure out that a neighborly special-needs teen has also been bullied. DeFelice sets up a sweet ending; while I don't usually agree with revenge, this time I was clapping and laughing too.

See what you think with her work and let me know. I look forward to learning what you thought!

Friday, July 3, 2015

Miyares wrote the picture book Pardon Me! awhile back, an enjoyable little book that includes a swamp, a fox, a parrot, not in that order and not what you think might happen happens. Come on--it's a picture book! Float just happened to land in my hands at the library last week (okay, I will tell the truth: I ordered it!). Ahh, what a perfect way to start summer vacation!

Float is a wordless picture book focusing on one rainy day in the life of a youngster in a yellow slicker, yellow rain hat, and yellow rain boots. Someone important helped a youngster make a paper boat, and the youngster protects that boat with their life...that is until they get to water. The youngster sets the boat into the water and watches it float away. They try to follow it until they no longer can. No boat. What happens next?